## Facts

- River herring (alewife and blueback) and shad (American and hickory) migrate from the Atlantic Ocean into rivers to spawn and are valued for ecological and recreational fishing interests.
- The Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish (MSB) Fishery Management Plan (FMP) regulates target stocks in federal waters but does not list river herring and shad as “stocks in the fishery.”
- River herring and shad are incidentally caught as bycatch in the MSB fishery.
- During development of MSB FMP Amendment 14, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council considered, but declined, to add river herring and shad as managed stocks in the MSB FMP.
- Instead of adding the species as FMP stocks, Amendment 14 adopted bycatch-focused measures and created a committee and working group to coordinate with other management bodies and reconsider federal management after a set period.
- NMFS, acting for the Secretary of Commerce, approved Amendment 14 and issued implementing regulations.
- Conservation organizations and individual anglers sued, alleging the federal defendants unlawfully failed to manage river herring and shad by not requiring their inclusion as MSB FMP stocks; the district court dismissed for lack of a reviewable agency action.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiffs identified reviewable “final agency action” under APA § 704 to challenge the failure to include river herring and shad as MSB FMP stocks.
2. Whether the Magnuson–Stevens Act imposes a judicially enforceable duty requiring the Secretary or NMFS to ensure particular species are designated as “stocks in the fishery,” or whether the matter is committed to agency discretion under APA § 701(a)(2).

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal.
- The court held plaintiffs did not present a reviewable APA claim seeking relief tied to a discrete final agency action, as their suit effectively sought to compel a particular management approach.
- The court held the Magnuson–Stevens Act does not mandate that species incidentally caught in a fishery must be included as FMP “stocks in the fishery.”
- Because the statute supplies no judicially manageable standard for compelling stock designation, the challenged choice was committed to agency discretion and not subject to APA review.
- The court also noted that regional council recommendations are not themselves final agency actions reviewable under the APA; review runs to the Secretary’s final approvals, not to council deliberations.

## Legal Principles

- APA review generally requires a discrete “final agency action”; courts will not entertain broad challenges that amount to demands to reorganize an agency program or compel a general regulatory strategy.
- Under APA § 701(a)(2), an agency decision is unreviewable when the governing statute provides no “law to apply” and leaves the decision to agency judgment.
- The Magnuson–Stevens Act grants substantial discretion to NMFS and regional councils in defining which species are “stocks in the fishery” for a particular FMP, absent a clear statutory command.
- Regional fishery management councils’ choices, standing alone, are not APA-reviewable final agency actions; judicial review focuses on the Secretary’s final approval actions.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that plaintiffs could not use the APA to force NMFS to manage river herring and shad as MSB FMP stocks because the claim lacked a reviewable discrete final agency action and the Magnuson–Stevens Act leaves stock-designation decisions largely to agency discretion without judicially manageable standards.


Anglers Conservation Network v. Pritzker, 809 F.3d 664 (D.C. Cir. 2016)